My Pumpkin Amber Recipe

In honor of Halloween (Playlist will be posted later) 

Here's my pumpkin amber. It's labor intensive but worth it.


The day before you brew:
First get 8 sugar baby pumpkins (the ones used to make pumpkin pie). Cut them in half and clean the seeds out. Don't worry about the 'stringy' parts just get most of the seeds. Bake these in the oven at 350 for an hour or so or until the flesh of the pumpkins get soft.

Scoop all the pumpkin flesh out and split it between two cookie sheets, should be about two inches thick. Put the cookie sheets back into the oven and roast it at 350 for another 30 minutes or until the top of the pumpkin begins to brown and caramelize.

Put the cookie sheets aside. You're done with day one.

The day of the brew:
Grains:
12 lbs Maris Otter
4 lbs Munich I
2 lbs Biscuit
.5 lbs Special B
1 lb Carapils

Heat 8 gallons of water to 165 degrees

dough in and hold the temp at 155 degrees for 90 minutes.

sparge.

while the kettle is sparging put one cookie sheet's worth of pumpkin in a kettle (5 gallon one) and then fill it with water. Heat the water to 180 degrees while stirring it occasionally to break up the larger chunks.

Put two full and unbroken cinnamon sticks into the collected runoff and put the whole thing on to boil.

When the water has reached 180 and the first kettle is done sparging, use a large strainer and pour the pumpkin water through it and into the grain bed. Mix the water into the grains hold for ten minutes and sparge again. Put the pumpkin you've stained aside.

While the first pumpkin water is sparging repeat the steps with the second sheet of pumpkin.

Strain and sparge as before.

Put both parts of the pumpkin into a large kettle and mash it with a potato masher. Fill the kettle with water and heat to 180 and repeat the steps from before. Collect the pumpkin still.

Repeat one more time. When this is done you should notice that the flesh of the pumpkin is more whitish in color.

Fill the kettle with more water (just water this time) and heat it to 180. Pour it into the grains. Collect the runoff again and top up the boil kettle. Collect 14 gallons in total.

Begin the boil.

When a stable boil is reached begin the 60 minute boil:

Add 1.75 oz Newport hops (60 minutes)
Add 2.75 oz Cascade hops (30 minutes)

at flame out (zero minutes) add following spice mix:


8 teaspoons Cinnamon
7 teaspoons Nutmeg
6 teaspoons Allspice
4 teaspoons ginger
1 1/2 teaspoons cloves

Aging my Wasteland Rucksack

What better way to age and wear in a rucksack than to wear it daily and use it as bookbag? Also patches sewn on are all apocalyptic. Pictured here is my Wastelander patch and a patch I made from my tribe's sash at Wasteland Weekend, The Scavenger's Cooperative.

Close up of The Scavenger's Cooperative patch:

And yes I do get some strange looks at the elementary school where I student teach. But hey needs to get broken in somehow.

Student Teaching, Week Two ... Apocalyptic Style

Today I may have just had the best one minute conversation with a student ever.

Da Kid: You know something (looking at a globe), if the Earth stopped turning this side would turn into a desert and the other side would freeze.

Me: (pointing at the area vertical to the equator) .... but what of this area right here?

Da Kid: (eyes bulge a bit) People would rush there!

Shame he was too young to read Final Impact by Yvonne Navarro because that's pretty much what happens after an asteroid strike.